The Riddle of the Uncanny Portrait
by Beta Gyre
Summary: Dr. Willett is a researcher at Miskatonic University who moonlights as a Providence physician. He asks two of Britain's best Dark Arts experts to assist him in solving a disturbing mystery. Little do they know that fifteen years later, someone else will be interested...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: The universe of _Harry Potter _belongs to J. K. Rowling. The universe of the Cthulhu Mythos and related material belongs to the estate of H. P. Lovecraft. No infringement is meant.

**Author's Note**: This story references events and characters from the world of H. P. Lovecraft, and it takes place almost entirely in Lovecraftian New England. I have therefore placed it in the Cthulhu Mythos crossover category. The specific story with which it's a crossover is "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," my favorite Lovecraft story, which doesn't reference Cthulhu but does reference another Old One. Familiarity with that story is probably helpful, but I hope not necessary to appreciate this fic.

There are some aspects of that story that have been adapted to the Potterverse, such as the affiliation of Dr. Willett and the magical means by which Joseph Curwen was resurrected. However, I thought that the events and timeline of it fit _astoundingly_ well within Potterverse history, and thus this fic was born. This story contains several passing references to other things modified to fit within the alternate-universe framework: some real-world events at the beginning, and a movie towards the end (in chapter III). It was originally meant to be a one-shot, but it has become unwieldy, so I've made it a three-chapter short fic. Chapter III will go up soon.

* * *

**The Riddle of the Uncanny Portrait**

* * *

**I.**

* * *

Marinus Bicknell Willett was, to all common appearances, a Providence physician in the practice of family medicine. His clientele consisted primarily of old families and the well-to-do, such as the venerable Ward family. He did not present himself as an expert in any specific field of medicine and was, like most general practitioners, regarded by academic experts with a certain degree of disdain—which he did not allow to bother him, but shrugged off entirely. It was assumed, by those who cared about the matter, that his mind was—though clearly advanced and cultivated—not _quite _as fine as those medical experts who took a more academic career path.

This could not have been farther from the truth. In fact, Dr. Willett's medical practice was a form of field research for his true area of interest, a subject in which the materialist academics could not share. Dr. Willett was a wizard, a tenured researcher at Miskatonic University in nearby Arkham, Massachusetts, studying the effects of magic upon the human brain and body with an eye to healing. His clients in Providence were not selected by economic elitism and certainly not by chance; they were, to a head, families that had magical ancestry at some point—even if it had seemingly died out. His research colleagues at Miskatonic knew that it was rare for magic to ever completely die out of a bloodline. What happened was that "muggle-born squibs" were born, often for several generations—people carrying some magical genes, but not the right combination to manifest active magic. All muggle-born wizards were the offspring of such a pairing.

Arkham and Salem were host to the premier American magical schools, and wizards and witches from much of the eastern United States attended school at one. However, there also seemed to be a lot of muggle-born squibs in the area—and _that _was harder for authorities to deal with. Many of these people had quasi-magical abilities, such as seeing ghosts or other spirits, using already bespelled magical objects, or performing psychokinesis or telepathy—and a few could do more than that. Some of these people could enter trance and allow communication across the veil with the dead, and since they were unidentifiable by wizards and groups of muggle paranormal investigators were now extant, the muggles tended to find these people first. The abilities that these muggle-born squibs manifested were not always benign, either. On occasion, an individual unknown to the magical authorities would manage to summon an evil entity, which invariably created a disturbance in the area. And to top it all off, a few people _could _fully conduct magic but did not manifest this trait until later in life. In short, there was quite a lot of work for magical authorities to do, most of it not caused by the people they knew to be witches or wizards.

The university faculty were divided on the problem; the majority wanted to keep supporting muggle skeptical organizations by financial means (and by magical mental pressure when necessary), but a vocal segment had thrown its support behind the muggle Society for Psychical Research and declared that the time had come to repeal the International Statute of Secrecy. These radicals asserted that the line between wizard and muggle was becoming indistinct in the Arkham-Salem environs, with more and more quasi-magical traits bleeding into the broader population. Humans, they insisted, were evolving into a wholly magical species, muggle science was catching up, and the muggle "witch-finders" _today _were acting in the name of intellectual curiosity rather than ignorant fanaticism. Their conservative colleagues, on the other hand, had often delved more deeply into the university's lore library; they would drop vague, dark hints and then clam up quickly when asked for more details of what they meant.

Dr. Willett didn't want anything to do with the politics, but his main line of research was about those people in the gray area, unknown to magical authorities because their abilities were not strong or consistent enough to register on tracking devices that identified wizards and witches at birth. Such people, Dr. Willett hypothesized, were at the greatest risk of physical and psychological damage. True muggles would be harmed by magic only if they were the victims of someone else's magic. Witches and wizards were trained to respect and control their powers, and they knew of the healing resources that the university and magical government established if they had accidents. It was the unidentified and untrained, those who had some single talent—or small suite of talents—but would never be able to control it, who were in the greatest danger.

Dr. Willett was terribly afraid that this very scenario had just unfolded with one of his subjects, and he had been helpless to stop it. For years, he had been unable to get close enough to his subject—his patient—to figure out what was going on, and now the doctor feared it had taken a turn for the worst.

* * *

_Eight years earlier..._

It was May 1920, and Dr. Willett was visiting the colonial-era mansion of the Ward family at the request of the head of the house to interview and examine his eighteen-year-old son, Charles Dexter. Ward Sr. had been alarmed at a growing obsession of his son with the young man's great-great-great-grandfather, a very long-lived man of the seventeenth and eighteenth century called Joseph Curwen.

Perhaps some of the father's alarm was due to the horrendous legend surrounding Curwen and two of his friends named Simon Orne and Edward Hutchinson—a story featuring certain murder, probable grave-robbery, suspected necromancy, and dark hints of something even worse. At last, in 1771, a mob of Providence citizens organized a raid on Curwen's second house, a farm in the countryside. This raid had ended with Curwen's death, though no one in the party wanted to speak of that in detail, and curiously, no one ever claimed credit for inflicting the death blow. A rumor quickly arose, helped along by the news of disturbing invocations and peals of mad laughter from the farmhouse, that Curwen had been killed by something he tried to invoke via black magic rather than by any resident of Providence. After that raid, Curwen's existence had been hushed up in most official records, surviving only in private correspondence and a cache of journals tucked into the walls of the town house where Curwen had lived—along with a stunning painted portrait of the man.

Charles Ward had, it seemed, become a recluse in his own rooms, engrossing himself in these old journals. The family had heretofore been proud of their son for his dedication to and scholarly interest in history, but this was quickly turning into a mania—and a disturbing one, Ward Sr. told the doctor. When he did deign to leave his rooms, the boy was prowling around graveyards looking for Curwen's grave—for what purpose, the boy would not say.

Dr. Willett had known for years that the mother's side of the family had magic in its bloodline. Since the discovery of Curwen in the lineage, it had become clear to him just where that magic had come from, although it had not manifested since then. Was young Charles a wizard who had slipped through the cracks? The identifying devices at the university had not written down his name at birth, but that might mean that he had manifested magic late—or it might mean that Charles was one of the subjects who were of special professional interest to the doctor. He wondered just what latent talents would manifest in the boy. Curwen had had a special aptitude for potions and alchemy... _and the Dark Arts,_ Willett thought.

Some time into the interview, Willett realized that he was being put off by Charles. The documents that the lad was showing him were things he had seen for a year, when the boy first began this particular study. At last he was shown a page from an old ledger, a rather boring page—but at the last was a menacing passage in the old wizard's handwriting. _"I am Hopeful ye Thing is breed'g Outside ye Spheres. It will drawe One who is to Come..."_

The boy had yanked the volume away from Willett at that point, but at once, almost preternaturally, he glanced at the portrait of Curwen that Charles had discovered the previous year and which now hung above the mantelpiece. Under his eighteenth-century accoutrements, the old wizard had a truly shocking resemblance to his living descendant: It was as if Joseph Curwen and Charles had been twins. The painting's subject was unmoving and silent, despite having been a wizard. It was merely an ordinary muggle painting.

_Or was it?_ As Willett gazed upon the wizard's blue eyes, he could not escape the feeling that the painting was full of dark magic. What, he could not guess, but he was certain it was there. It was magic he had never encountered before, even at famously Dark Arts-friendly Miskatonic. The Dark Arts were not _his _professional specialty.

* * *

As much as it intrigued him, Dr. Willett unfortunately had little opportunity to investigate the painting. Ward had maintained his reclusive habits until embarking on a trip to Europe in 1923, and he had strictly banned examination of the books and other materials that he had left behind. When the doctor questioned the parents, they too were strangely insistent that the portrait was not to be touched and that as little time as possible was to be spent in the room—even the mother, who strongly disliked the portrait's very presence because of its uncanny similarity to her son's looks.

_Could Charles be a late-manifesting wizard and have them under the Imperius Curse?_ Willett wondered. He did not want to believe the young man capable of that. _Or could it be the magic in the portrait itself that is influencing them?_ This seemed more likely. The picture had certainly had an effect on the direction of Charles's thoughts. This hypothesis, despite keeping Charles innocent, was somehow even more disturbing to the doctor. How could a mere magical artifact influence the thoughts of people toward its own protection? It was _subtle,_ and the doctor didn't like it. Cursed items that affected people's thoughts usually had nothing subtle about them, often putting people to sleep or turning them into gibbering idiots who repeated the same phrases over and over. Such spells would overwrite whatever thoughts the victim would naturally have, an expected result of static, nonliving magic. _This _was different. It was almost as if this portrait were _alive _and could influence people's thoughts in the normal way that a living person could do. _How is that possible?_ the doctor thought.

Unfortunately, there was no way to answer the question. The parents were unmoving on the subject of their son's rooms. Charles did not return until May 1926, at which point he began to chant arcane spells and brew noxious-smelling potions behind closed doors, refusing to divulge any meaningful information about what he was up to. Willett returned to his normal academic work, resigned to the fact that Charles would apparently keep his doings a secret. In March 1927, it seemed even more certain; Charles had had something large and heavy brought inside and then banned his own parents from his in-house laboratory.

But on April 19, the doctor was again summoned to the Ward mansion to have a talk with Charles. Very strange things had taken place on the fifteenth, Mrs. Ward explained.

"He chanted this one verse over and over," she whispered to the doctor, as if afraid that her son—or _something else—_might overhear her.

"Did you catch what the 'verse' was?" Willett asked.

She had, and she wrote it down from memory. The doctor took the slip of paper and his eyes popped wide open at what was written on it. That it was dark magic was obvious, but it also appeared to be a fomula for summoning the powers of certain spirit-plane entities. _What is the boy doing?_ the doctor screamed in thought. He pocketed the paper, resolved to have outside experts look at it and tell exactly what it did. _He _was not an expert in the Dark Arts and certainly had no knowledge of summoning spells.

Later that evening, an extremely dark incantation had thundered through the house in a voice unlike Charles's. This spell too had been recorded by Mrs. Ward and handed to Willett with a look of despair. Even she knew that it was extremely dark magic; her son had once told her so, when he was more open about his researches into his ancestor.

And at last, another, different chant had begun to sound from the locked laboratory. This one was unknown to Mrs. Ward and in a gibberish language; she was unable to record it for him. But at last, this chant too had ceased, tumultuously, and after that, laughter and what sounded uncannily like two distinct voices in dialogue were heard at the door.

This was what Mrs. Ward reported to the doctor on the nineteenth of April. Charles had sharply changed his behavioral patterns after the night of the fifteenth, emerging into the house for books on a wide variety of modern subjects—also markedly unlike his behavior over the past eight years, in which he had been fixated upon events of the eighteenth century. Her son had to be interviewed, she said firmly. His recent behavior was disturbing and she feared that he was losing his mind.

"I quite agree that it is unsuitable for a family home," Charles said when Dr. Willett finally saw him. "I should have procured an outside laboratory a long time ago, really."

Willett looked at the paneling over the mantelpiece where he expected the uncanny portrait of Joseph Curwen to be, and he nearly did a double take. The picture was gone. _Well, that explains why the mother suddenly panicked,_ the doctor thought. _It wasn't influencing her any longer._

"What happened to the painting?" he exclaimed, getting up to examine it, hoping to find traces of magic still present. But his hands only found bare wood. That it had once been magical was all but certain; Willett did detect traces, but whatever the spells had been, it was now impossible to say. He wanted to pull his hair out in disappointment.

Charles smirked. "I think it must have been the fumes of the chemicals," he said evasively. "It happened four days ago." He tried to bury the smirk on his face but failed.

The doctor did not fail to notice. "The day that your poor mother worried herself sick about your chantings and incantations," he said harshly. At once his quick mind leapt to another conclusion. _Charles can cast wandless Dark Arts spells. He must be a late-manifesting wizard! Those dark spells, somehow, are what destroyed the portrait. He has been brewing potions in this room for years._ However, he did not voice his conclusions to the boy. "I do not see what is amusing about the loss of the picture, or anything else I have been informed of by your parents."

"You are quite right about the latter," Charles agreed. "That's why I have decided, at last, to take my researches out of their home and cease disturbing them. But the painting—well, it was just a painting."

Willett locked eyes with the youth. For a fraction of a second, he was able to perform Legilimency and detect the lie. But Charles, perhaps cognizant of the doctor's intentions, broke eye contact before he could grasp the truth. Giving up on the interview, Willett soon left.

As it turned out, Charles was good to his word about leaving the Ward mansion and taking his occult materials with him. In late summer, he rented a bungalow on the outskirts of town, an area that Dr. Willett was immediately able to document had once been the site of Joseph Curwen's farm. The significance of this was not lost on him, and his concern deepened. It was evident that the youth was up to no good, attempting some of the dark magic that Joseph Curwen and his two friends of old had written down, but specifically _what _the boy was doing, the doctor could not determine.

Charles also acquired two companions, one who was apparently a laborer or manservant and one who was a colleague. The trio's country neighbors disliked the weird, ritualistic chanting that emanated from the farmhouse at night, and this colleague, who went by the name of Dr. Allen and was always seen in a false-looking beard and heavy glasses, seemed to be the most distrusted of all. That a rash of gory, vampiristic murders was taking place across Providence throughout the latter half of 1927, the period when this Dr. Allen first appeared on the scene, did not help the supposed doctor's standing in the community.

No one seemed to know who he was or where he had come from, but almost as soon as he had shown up, he had—so it seemed to Dr. Willett—taken over Charles's research. Unpleasant reports starting coming from the bungalow vicinity, rumors of excessive orders of meat from the butcher shop, strange importations, and bizarre catalogues of chemicals. Dr. Willett's mind began to go to some very dark places as he mused over these reports and what might conceivably explain them. The story of old Joseph Curwen was on his thoughts a lot, how that wizard had been suspected of grave-robbery, attempted necromancy, and the creation of Inferi for some unknown purpose—though no such bodies had ever been found. If it were true... well, it would have been in those damnable notes that Charles had found so many years ago, and Dr. Allen might be trying to recreate the work.

This disturbing theory seemed confirmed with the shocking report in January 1928 that a cargo of coffins of Philadelphia, containing the remains of highly distinguished personages from American history, had been intercepted en route to the bungalow. Dr. Willett instantly fired off a magical telegram to a professional counterpart, Dr. Gates, who resided there, informing him of the repulsive discovery. One of the deceased had been a wizard and his tomb was heavily protected by spells, which implied that wizard criminals had been involved in the theft. The muggle authorities were also on the case at once. When questioned, Charles insisted that he had merely ordered preserved specimens from a scientific supplier and certainly had no idea that such a vile crime would be committed in their procurement, let alone that the identity of the specimens would be what it was. He was believed—and he might, Willett thought, have been telling the truth as he knew it. The Charles he knew had too great a respect for his country's history to make such a request. Dr. Allen was behind it, no doubt.

Shortly after this incident, Dr. Willett received a frantic, desperate letter from Charles. The young man was panicked, having escaped the bungalow and returned home, and urged the destruction of everything found there—and the killing of Dr. Allen, no questions asked. This itself was shocking enough; Charles had always been a mild-mannered fellow, and Dr. Willett had never heard him call for the death of anyone. He shuddered over some of the young man's phrasing: _"Upon us depends more than can be put into words – all civilisation, all natural law, perhaps even the fate of the solar system and the universe. I have brought to light a monstrous abnormality, but I did it for the sake of knowledge. Now for the sake of all life and Nature you must help me thrust it back into the dark again."_ Yes, he thought grimly, Allen was apparently another modern aficionado of the late Joseph Curwen and was attempting to carry the torch.

There was no wizard known to the Arkham authorities—or any of the other North American offices of magic—by the name of Allen. Dr. Willett had already made that inquiry by the time the letter arrived. That did not mean that he wasn't a wizard who, like Charles, had manifested late and escaped their notice, but it seemed far more likely that it was an assumed name, just as that beard and glasses were so highly suspicious to Willett. Charles was now at home, apparently, so it was time to go to the Ward house and finally have a good long talk.

Dr. Willett was deeply displeased to find, upon arrival at the mansion, that Charles had apparently gone back on his word and returned to the bungalow. He had, it seemed, escaped the house without anyone noticing, then returned for something, and then left openly. There had been strange noises, the butler reported, after his return—a scuffling, a series of fearful cries, and a choking sound—but nothing was found amiss in the laboratory after the second departure. Dr. Willett sat in the empty laboratory, gazing upon the blank paneling that had once held Curwen's portrait, not knowing exactly what he feared, but not liking the situation one bit.

Charles did not return to the house that evening. Resigned and irritated, the doctor resolved to visit the bungalow. Dr. Allen was gone from the place, Charles's father reported the next day. This news briefly buoyed Willett. Perhaps the danger was gone and Charles was taking care of the infernal laboratory. If so, Dr. Willett definitely wanted to be on hand to assist him—and investigate it himself.

* * *

The meeting had been deeply unsatisfactory. Charles Ward—if it were he—behaved like a character out of time, speaking in a very old-fashioned way and in a voice unlike his own. He asserted, in complete defiance of the plea to kill in the letter, that Dr. Allen was a fine man and anything he may have said to the contrary was to be forgotten, for it was written in a state of nerves. Dr. Willett could not help but wonder, for a terrible moment, about spirit possession. He had heard of such things... Additionally, none of the books, notes, or chemical paraphernalia that had once graced the rooms of the Ward mansion were visible in the bungalow. They weren't just disguised; they were _gone._ Hidden away somewhere else, Dr. Willett presumed. That there was an underground crypt left over from the days of Joseph Curwen seemed indubitable to him. That was where the research was now taking place. He did not like this development one bit and decided that something significant needed to be done.

After a similarly unproductive meeting between Ward and his father, Dr. Willett urged Mr. Ward to have his son committed to the mental hospital. If it _were _his son, he had taken on a neurotic mania and was clearly aping the customs, language, and even writing of the era—and person—that he had studied for so many years. If it were _not _his son, then it was still safer to have him out of that bungalow, away from the magical materials, if only temporarily so.

This was done on the eighth of March. There was no resistance from the young man, merely an amused resignation as the doctors and their assistants came to the bungalow to take him away. Dr. Willett felt a creeping alarm as, once again, the thought crossed his mind that this was not the boy he had known from childhood.

Shortly after Ward's commitment to the asylum, a strange letter arrived at the family house, addressed to Dr. Allen, from an unknown person in Prague. To Willett's displeasure, the father found and read this note before he could hide it.

Whether the father understood what he was reading, Dr. Willett certainly did. It contained clear references to grave-robbery and the trafficking of the exhumed remains—the very type of activity that old Joseph Curwen was supposed to have been doing. It addressed Dr. Allen as "Mr. J. C" and was signed "Simon O.," the name and initial of one of Curwen's old friends and colleagues. And it also contained this highly disturbing phrase: _"As I told you longe ago, do not calle up That which you can not put downe; either from dead Saltes or out of ye Spheres beyond."_

When he and the father went to the asylum to confront the patient about the meaning of this missive, Dr. Willett very much wished that he was a better Legilimens. The young man was evasive, implying that it was some manner of role-playing and that being "in character" with their historical counterparts aided the "researchers" in their studies. This explanation, in fact, was exactly what the materialist muggle psychiatrists were convinced was the case, a fact that did not escape Dr. Willett. He was certain that the young man was trying to charm his way out of the hospital as soon as he could by telling them what they wanted to hear. He was also certain that it would be a horrendous idea to permit it.

* * *

**End Notes:** Yes, Lovecraft fans, this is almost all background and reiteration of his story. Chapter II is where the AU really begins in earnest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Several goodies in this chapter for the Potter-Lovecraft fans. :)

* * *

**II.**

* * *

_Present day, late March 1928_

Back from the unsatisfactory asylum visit, Dr. Willett rubbed his forehead anxiously. He could not figure out this case himself, he knew. He needed to involve others—people who knew more about the Dark Arts than he did. There were many such people among the faculty at Miskatonic University, of course, but Dr. Willett felt a certain degree of scruple about involving his university colleagues in this. Most of the Dark Arts experts at his university frankly gave the doctor the creeps. Their interest in the subject did not seem _quite _academic, and the vast majority of them were from families that already seemed to have a hereditary streak of mental illness—the Waites, the Marshes, the Gilmans, the Pickmans. Dr. Willett did not deem it a good idea to involve people he knew were prone to disturbing manias about Dark Arts field research.

His thoughts turned abroad to the witches and wizards in Britain and France with whom he had corresponded before. The _best _person to contact was Phineas Nigellus Black... but, _curse _it, old Headmaster Black had died three years ago. The British school was currently headed by Armando Dippet, who Dr. Willett knew was not an expert in dark magic. His mind immediately turned to the school's deputy head, Albus Dumbledore...

_Ah,_ Willett thought with satisfaction. Dumbledore was known to be opposed to the Dark Arts, but unlike his boss, he had specific, knowledgeable reasons for his position and knew the area thoroughly. _And it wouldn't be a bad idea to ask his colleague, Horace Slughorn, either. He also knows his material. Dark potions were definitely used in the Ward case, and Horace knows that subject better than Albus._

Willett quickly wrote a letter to the two foreign wizards and considered how to send it. The British—most Europeans, it seemed—still used owls to communicate. It was cruel to use owls for a trans-oceanic trip, but often considered rude and imposing to send an unsolicited letter by Floo. As a result, there was not that much communication across long distances. European and American _muggles _communicated with each other more than wizards! _They really need to stop being so snooty about muggle technology,_ Willett thought. _The telegraph would be ideal for situations such as this._ Wizarding Arkham had magically adapted telegraph offices to connect it with the other major wizarding areas in the United States—New Orleans, Roswell, Washington DC, and Philadelphia—but there was no magical telegraphy office at all in wizarding Britain. _Well, Albus at least will understand._ Gritting his teeth, he dusted the fireplace with powder and requested the personal fireplace of the deputy headmaster of the British school.

The first reply came very quickly, within an hour. _"Thank you for the honour of soliciting our assistance in your case. I have discussed the matter with Horace and we will be considering it in greater detail and exchanging theories of what manner of Dark Magic may be involved. We think a face-to-face Floo meeting would be best, however, and wish to know what dates you prefer. –Albus D._"

Willett felt relief wash over him at once. Two great minds would be put on the case, and surely between the three of them, they could crack it. Before long, a Floo meeting for the second of April was scheduled.

Willett deemed it advisable, at this point, to refresh himself on the Dark Arts. It had been an unpleasant subject to him during his own days as a student, and his professional specialty—the effect of magical exposure on the untrained or quasi-magical—was not Dark Arts-specific, so he had no particular need to study it more than the university required him to. But this case obviously was saturated with that type of magic, and he did not want to appear a _complete _ignoramus to the British professors. He Apparated back to Miskatonic and immersed himself in the fabled library as soon as he could, digging into books that he had hoped he had seen the last of when he graduated.

The _Necronomicon,_ fortunately, did not appear necessary. The faculty—even the ones most interested in dark magic, whom Willett trusted the least—looked askance at anyone who claimed a need to read through the university's copy. But other texts were equally unsettling.

The work of dark potioneer Borellus seemed to contain the key to the goings-on at the Pawtucket bungalow. Willett read with a shudder the following passage, which he had seen before in connection with the Ward case:

"_The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the lyke Method from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been incinerated."_

There it was, a frank admission that Inferi could be created not just from _fresh kills,_ but from those long dead. Was _that _what was going on at the farmhouse? It seemed horribly likely to Willett. He did not want to believe Charles Ward capable of that. It had to be Dr. Allen who had taken the research in this new direction, and that was why Charles had written his frantic note in February. But what was the purpose of doing so? The doctor had, of course, studied Inferi in his student days, but it was emphasized that they were undead, mindless, and enslaved to the will of the dark wizard who animated them. Willett remembered the shipment of remains from Philadelphia that had come to the bungalow; what possible reason would Allen have for making Inferi specifically of the bodies of American founders? No, there had to be more to this... but the doctor did not know what, or where to look for such information. He did not even know what information he was seeking. In frustration, he gave up the search. At least he would have something to tell the professors.

Before leaving the library, Dr. Willett took notes of the preliminary theory he had worked out. When Dumbledore and Slughorn had their Floo conference with him, he would present this theory to them and ask what they thought of it. He would also inquire as to whether they knew of any other forms of Inferi that could be created.

* * *

Dr. Willett scrambled in his office to ready it for the joint Floo meeting that he was to have at any moment. He had gone over his notes and written up a short summary of the case as well as he could. His mind had been unsettled—though he had not been overly surprised—by the receipt at the Ward home of a letter from another shady character, a supposed baron from Transylvania—though the letter was signed, suspiciously, _Edw. H._ This letter, far more so than the "Simon O." missive, was threatening, containing an explicit exhortation to Dr. Allen to murder Charles Ward if he presented difficulties. But even more unnerving was a single sentence from it: _"I rejoice that you traffick not so much with Those Outside; for there was ever a Mortall Peril in it, and you are sensible what it did when you ask'd Protection of One not dispos'd to give it."_ That was a blatant allusion to Joseph Curwen's suspicious demise in 1771. The implications were too horrendous for Dr. Willett to want to face at the moment. He knew that there were Dark Arts tomes in the Miskatonic library that probably held the answer, but for now, he was glad that he had ceased his Dark Arts research with books about Inferi. He was also glad that this letter hadn't arrived until today, when there was no time now to go to the library and work out what this had to mean. It would be so much easier on his nerves to talk about horrible subjects in the comfort of his own sunny study with two other wizards.

The fire in the fireplace sprang to life as the clock chimed. At once it turned green. Albus Dumbledore and Horace Slughorn—or their heads, anyway—appeared in the vivid flames, right on schedule.

"I say!" Slughorn was exclaiming. "Was it just me, Albus, or did that seem _stretchier _than usual—oh, my apologies!" he said as he saw that Willett was present. "I didn't realize... well, it's good to meet you! Dr. Marinus Willett, I presume?"

Dr. Willett confirmed this. Introductions were made, and at once, Dumbledore urged him to begin a full account of the Ward case, including any recent developments. Willett gave silent thanks for his own organization prior to the meeting and launched his narrative promptly.

The fiery faces of the British professors grew grave as he described the letters from "Simon O." and "Edward H." that had arrived recently. He had given the wizards only a basic overview of the case, not mentioning the Simon O. letter or the connection with the Curwen legend—in fact, he had not mentioned the specifics of the Curwen story at all. This tale, as well as the recent developments with the asylum patient's behavior, made both wizards become deeply unsettled. At last, Dr. Willett told them of his researches in the Miskatonic library and his theory that Dr. Allen was involved in the creation of Inferi. Finishing up his story, he took a drink of water and waited for the eminent professors to respond.

Albus Dumbledore paused, deep in thought. At last he opened his mouth. "Dr. Willett," he said in a hesitant voice, "have you considered the possibility that the character calling himself Dr. Allen is in fact the same Joseph Curwen from the eighteenth century?"

"I have _considered _it, certainly," Willett said, "as repellent as the idea is. But how could it be? He was dead and buried. Granted," he said, "I am almost certain that Charles did finally find that grave and brought the coffin into his parents' house one night in March of last year. But what good would that do? Supposing that Charles made an Inferius out of Curwen's bones, how could that now be the same person who is walking around with a working mind?" He gazed upon the fiery faces. "Is there some type of Inferius that I've never heard of?"

Dumbledore sighed heavily. "I do think Inferi are a part of the case, as you do. But I am speaking of something else. In your first correspondence with us, you emphasized that there had been a portrait of Curwen that you found suspicious."

"Yes," Willett agreed. "I never had the chance to investigate it closely, but I could tell that when it existed, it was full of dark magic. I also think it influenced the thoughts of the Wards, most especially Charles."

"And you are certain that this portrait was made before Curwen's—downfall, let us say—in 1771?"

"Positive. The man's very existence was hushed up after that. Nobody would have been painting him. Charles was pretty sure it was painted in 1765 based on his readings."

Dumbledore and Slughorn exchanged troubled looks. "Very well. Horace and I have been interested in your account of that portrait too, and, after hearing everything else you have told us of the case, we are pretty sure we know what it was. Dr. Willett, in your studies, have you ever heard of Horcruxes?"

The word hit like a lightning bolt. Dr. Willett had indeed heard of them, many years ago. There was a book—_Secrets of the Darkest Art,_ another Dark Arts tome that he had last seen as a student—that contained a whole chapter about them. It had been too distasteful to study more than his "survey of dark magic" university courses required, but he did remember now. And as he recalled the definition, he realized that the professors were almost certainly correct.

Dr. Willett thought of the old legend about Curwen's demise in 1771. There had been reports of a dark invocation at the very last, followed by shouts, laughter, and then screams of utter terror. There was also a report of a comment often made by one of the leaders: _"Pox on that son of a bitch, but he had no business to laugh while he screamed. 'Twas as though the damned bastard had somewhat up his sleeve. For half a crown I'd burn his damned home."_ A Horcrux, hidden journals with instructions on how to do a resurrection, and—perhaps—a dark spell that would catch at the right person (_Charles!_ Dr. Willett thought unhappily) would certainly count as "something up his sleeve" in the face of death.

"Yes," he said slowly. "You're right—that has to be it. They _do_ reach out and possess people who get too attached to them. They can influence the thoughts of those around them. That's exactly what that accursed painting did. And Joseph Curwen was certainly a murderer many times over. Even before he was suspected of grave-robbery and necromancy, he was suspected of getting into the slave trade to procure human beings that he could practice on."

Dumbledore and Slughorn nodded disgustedly.

"But," Willett continued, "what could become of it? I thought it required something incredibly powerful to destroy one."

"It does," Dumbledore said.

"The potions that Charles had in his laboratory," Willett said. "Do you think they could have destroyed the Horcrux? That was the excuse Charles gave when the painting was ruined." He addressed this question more to Slughorn.

"Based on what you said he was making in there, I can confirm that they are, as you suspected, dark potions that are used in the creation of Inferi from"—he shuddered—"remains that have already decomposed a great deal. But no, to my knowledge, they are not nearly strong enough to destroy a Horcrux."

"There were three distinct dark spells, too," Willett said desperately. He picked up his notes about the case and found the pages where Charles's mother had recorded his chantings from the night last year that Joseph Curwen must have been resurrected. "His mother only could remember two of them. The last was gibberish to her." He held up the pages in front of the sparking faces. "Do these mean anything to you? I know the second one is malevolent, but is there any way either of these could have destroyed a Horcrux?"

Dumbledore and Slughorn examined the handwritten notes. At last they both shook their heads slowly. "I wish you knew what the third spell was," Dumbledore said.

"So do I," Dr. Willett said unhappily. "But the boy's mother wrote these down, and the third was something she had never heard him speak of before."

"It's _just _possible that it might have been a spell to rehouse the fragment of soul that had been in the portrait in the newly created Inferius," Dumbledore said. "Normally—though, granted, the amount of information on magic as dark as this is very small indeed—normally, it is thought that to get a piece of soul out of a Horcrux and into a living body of its own requires a death. However, that may only be if there is no body already existing for it to incarnate." He paused darkly. "You have said that Curwen looked identical to Charles. Are you _certain _that young Charles was seen alive after these events last year?"

Dr. Willett thought back. "Yes," he finally said. "Last fall, after he moved out of the family mansion, the residents of Pawtuxet saw him and Allen. Also, in January, when he was questioned about that appalling shipment, Dr. Allen was seen right next to him. And the frantic letter, when he made his last visit to his parents' home—that was definitely Charles."

"Hmm," Dumbledore said. "Well, in that case, that third spell must have been some dark magic to rehouse the fragment of soul. I am unaware of what such a spell could be, but I will certainly see what I can find."

"But wait a second," Willett said, frowning as something occurred to him. "I thought that Horcruxes kept the entire soul earthbound—that even if the original body were completely destroyed, a Horcrux would keep that fragment of soul from departing. What became of that fragment of soul, then? Why would _it _not be the part that would be rehoused in a resurrection ritual?"

"I was reminded of what you told us today regarding the Hutchinson letter that just arrived and the old story of Curwen's demise," Dumbledore said. "No one in the raiding party took credit for striking the fatal blow, correct?"

"Not that I am aware of." He thought about the letter, of which Mr. Ward had the original, but he had surreptitiously created a duplicate. "_'You are sensible what it did when you ask'd Protection of One not dispos'd to give it,'"_ Willett read aloud. "Great God! There was a rumor that he had been taken out by something that he summoned... You don't suppose it took his soul?" A chill rippled down Willett's spine.

"It's possible," Dumbledore said gravely. "Dementors, as you know, can do that, and a Horcrux will offer no protection whatsoever."

"That's true," Willett said. "Some of my faculty colleagues know of others—or _Others,_ capital, as they would say—that could cross barriers and take victims' souls with them."

"Indeed. Curwen may have tried to call for aid from some dark being of this sort, and instead, it chose to remove him."

"But if the simulacrum walking around today is animated by the soul fragment that was in the Horcrux, how could it have _that_ memory, as that letter says?" Willett asked. "How could it be 'sensible' of any such thing?"

"How indeed," Dumbledore said thoughtfully. "Again, I think the answer must lie with that unknown third spell. My guess would be that it is a spell that can also pull back the soul from beyond the Veil—_if _there is another fragment of soul anchoring it on the earth, of course."

"And such a spell could destroy a Horcrux?"

"Any spell of that sort would be incredibly powerful, so it's a possibility. It seems to me that the facts indicate either this, or the other theory—that the simulacrum is animated by the soul fragment from the painting."

In the portentous silence following this statement, Dr. Willett considered the patient in the asylum. It did seem that the three of them had worked out the true identity of Dr. Allen. The identity of the mental patient was a bit harder to work out, but in light of this new theory, there seemed to be two possibilities, neither good. If that really was Charles, then he had been possessed by one of the pieces of Curwen's soul. That was the only rational way to explain his recent behavior, so unlike Charles and so anachronistic. But then, where was Curwen? No, that did not seem likely. Alternately, the patient was Curwen, and Charles was detained somewhere—presumably underground. _Or possibly even—_but Dr. Willett would not allow himself to complete that black thought.

"I will investigate the bungalow as well as I am able," Dr. Willett said. "I suspect that that infernal wizard is currently away, and the spell we're speculating about is bound to be written down prominently somewhere."

"I quite agree," Dumbledore said, "but please take care if you attempt that."

"Naturally."

"This Curwen," Slughorn said tentatively, "just for my own curiosity, because he does seem to have been quite talented, though of course in a horrible, dark way... was he from a pureblood family?"

"He was," Willett replied. "We keep a very close eye on interbreeding, because it is so strongly frowned upon, and it is only some renegade branches of families—primarily in Innsmouth—who engage in it." He scowled. "Unfortunately, Curwen's dark activity cannot be blamed on a contaminated family tree."

Slughorn looked confused. "I'm not sure I quite understand—" he began to say.

Albus Dumbledore quickly broke into the discussion and, as briefly as he could, explained the differences in linguistic evolution across the Atlantic—how, because of some foul mating practices in a dark cult in Innsmouth, in America the terms "pureblood" and "halfblood" (and "mixed-blood") had come to mean the amount of _human _ancestry in a wizard and the ancestry of fully human "muggle-born" wizards was irrelevant.

At the end of the explanation, Slughorn looked embarrassed, and Willett looked disdainful. "I see!" he exclaimed. "So there is a faction in your country that thinks the muggle-born shouldn't have rights! I suppose they would rather have hundreds of untrained magicals wandering around in the broader community, completely ignorant of magic and susceptible to any spirit entities whose attention they inadvertently drew! I would like to invite them to take a good look at Arkham and see how well _that_ would work. That is the very problem we're grappling with, except it's about late-blooming wizards and psychically active squibs."

"You are quite right," Dumbledore agreed. "Unfortunately, I doubt that they would see it that way. People have an incredible ability to twist their interpretation of a fact to reinforce whatever they already want to believe." He cleared his throat, sending sparks up in Willett's fireplace. "But this is neither here nor there. I'm afraid, Dr. Willett, that Horace and I have to get back to our teaching duties, so we must conclude this meeting. But I agree with you that an investigation of that bungalow, and the crypt that undoubtedly lies beneath, is necessary. Do take precautions when you do so. There are bound to be foul curses throughout."

"No doubt," Willett agreed. "Well, thanks so much for your time and insight. I think that progress has been made... and I hope that more is coming soon."

* * *

**End Notes:** I cannot accept that across the entire world, wizarding cultures would have the exact same political issues and social customs. That didn't happen in the "muggle" world, and there is no reason it would have happened with wizards, especially given the barriers of communication, as I have speculated in this chapter.

Finally, there is a reason Tom Riddle is listed in the summary as a character, and it is probably possible to guess what that reason is. He'll show up in chapter III.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** This concludes this short fic. There is additional world-building here, including references to "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (which had a timeline almost coeval with "Ward") and some crossover AU information about just _why _the wizards and witches of Arkham have such a negative opinion of part-humans (and why "pureblood," in their American Wizarding English, means "a fully human wizard" without regard to wizard or muggle progenitors). There is also a reference to a (rather silly) movie, mainly because it's a guilty pleasure and I just couldn't resist doing it. And at last, if it wasn't clear, it will become clear just what I'm doing with regard to the tie-in with Potterverse "history."

* * *

**III.**

* * *

The next day that Willett was at Miskatonic, the university faculty were abuzz with news of a sort completely different from his research topic. In February, the Federal Aurors had gone into the degenerate port of Innsmouth and arrested a lot of suspicious individuals. The muggle population had been under the impression that their houses were burned and destroyed in a police raid, but in reality, the Aurors had cast non-destructive fire and then put a charm over the waterfront rows to make these buildings look burned. The real purpose was to have an unfettered investigation of the houses, and it would seem that the findings were now in.

Several members of the faculty had distant relations in Innsmouth, but they had disowned these family members for involvement in the town's sea-cult and cross-breeding with non-human beings. The respectable magical community of New England had long looked askance at the cultists, and the findings of the Aurors' investigation confirmed their worst suspicions.

Willett listened to the talk and poured himself a cup of coffee from the faculty lounge. Miskatonic University did not employ house-elves due to the fact that they were not native and that there was a general distrust of non-human sapient magical beings in America—a distrust that was quite warranted, Dr. Willett had to admit, given that the only such beings that Arkham-Salem authorities ever had to deal with were very malevolent and usually partially from the spirit planes. Elves on the whole had no ill-will for mankind, but in the British Isles they had a long history of sabotaging their masters if they didn't like them. Most of the New England families wealthy enough to have owned one didn't want the risk, especially with the long-running monster and evil spirit problem in the area, and it was unthinkable for the university.

"To think!" exclaimed Professor Upham, who taught advanced arcane mathematics. "Those half-bloods actually had formulae to call out to an Old One!"

_That _got Dr. Willett's attention. It also got the attention of several others in the lounge.

"Which Old One?" asked Professor Ellery, master of alchemy.

Upham spoke in a hushed tone. "Great Cthulhu," he said. He raised his voice to normal tones. "It is dangerous enough when true humans, of sound mind and strong magic, attempt it. For mixed-bloods, especially whose human ancestry is so inbred... their minds coarse and simple... their magic untrained except by their 'priests'... it was a bad situation, much worse than we knew."

Dr. Willett's mind was racing. He had been glad that the Innsmouth investigation had released its findings because he knew it would be the only topic of discussion among the faculty, and that meant that no one would be questioning _him_ about why he seemed preoccupied. He had _not _expected the investigation to yield any clues about his case—but it seemed that it had.

_It wouldn't have been Cthulhu,_ Willett thought, _but there are other Old Ones who might have the powers that figured in the Ward-Curwen case. The Hutchinson and Orne characters did advise him not to call up "Those Outside" or "out of the Spheres beyond."_

Armed with this suspicion, Dr. Willett made plans that afternoon to go to the Pawtuxet bungalow on Friday the sixth. He did not really want Mr. Ward along, since the man—though probably a carrier of magic, a "muggle-born squib"—was unable to be of any help if Willett ran into curses. In fact, Mr. Ward would probably be a liability in that crypt, and Willett thought, guiltily, that it would be professionally irresponsible for him to expose a vulnerable person of the very sort he had been studying for years. However, as a father, Mr. Ward had insisted on being present, and it was not for the doctor to gainsay him. He would try to discourage Mr. Ward from actually venturing into the crypt itself and rather hoped that the place would be repugnant enough in its own right that he didn't _want _to go inside.

On Thursday Willett slipped into the Miskatonic library and refreshed himself on the names and capabilities of the known Old Ones. It was very unpleasant reading, much more so than refreshing himself on the nature of Inferi or Horcruxes, but he realized that it needed to be done. This would answer so many questions about the case. It would explain why Charles had been so desperate for the doctor's assistance in his last letter—what he feared that "Allen" was going to try to do—and it would shed light on what had actually taken place in the resurrection.

When Dr. Willett and Mr. Ward at last headed out to the Pawtuxet house, the doctor had a decent idea of what kinds of spells and invocations that he was looking for—and more than ever, he wanted Mr. Ward kept _out _of it. He was privately pleased when the man was overcome by a foul stench that issued forth from a manhole in the cellar and declined to enter the vault. Willett didn't really want to go into that pit himself, but someone had to do it. Steeling himself, he descended.

* * *

_Three days later..._

Dr. Willett paced agitatedly around his study. A streak of white had appeared in his hair, and his heart palpitated every time that he failed to drink his Calming Potion. This case had aged him, and he was not young to begin with.

The face of Albus Dumbledore appeared in his fireplace. Without prelude, Willett began to speak anxiously.

"You need to come as soon as you can," he urged. "You and Horace. This case—I've found some things out—and none of it is good." He wiped the sweat off his brow.

"Can you speak of what you have found?" Dumbledore asked in gentle tones.

Willett sank down to the floor. "Some. Some, I don't entirely know, and I don't want to speculate. But... I've found the spell we discussed last time, for one."

Dumbledore paused at that. "Should I call for Horace?"

"It probably isn't necessary this time, but you can tell him whatever I tell you." Willett wiped his forehead again. "I think that the simulacrum of Curwen _does _contain the original soul—the one not in the Horcrux. The spell I found in that crypt invoked an Old One who could have held that soul fragment in its custody."

Dumbledore looked unsurprised. "I feared as much. I think that Horace and I will need to investigate this vault ourselves when we come."

Willett sighed. "You can try, but I doubt you'll find it now."

"Why not?"

Willett gazed weakly at the sparking face in his fire. "I can't explain it just yet," he managed to get out.

Dumbledore seemed to understand. Something shocking had undoubtedly happened, and the doctor needed more time to collect himself and recover his health and sanity.

Willett heaved a breath. "The fortunate thing, I suppose, is that I also found a spell that should _put down _that thing that is currently in the asylum, about to talk its way out of there. There were two spells—one to raise, one to lay. I'm going to go to the hospital and take care of it." He looked resigned, determined, and grave.

"I hesitate to ask this," Dumbledore said, "but—when you were in the crypt, did you find your young patient?"

Willett gazed back at the fire. For the first time, true sorrow filled his face. "No," he cracked. "But this afternoon—I found his body. Strangled, concussed, and stuffed behind the place where that damned portrait used to be, like a damned _trophy."_

Dumbledore said nothing.

"I have burned it," he said in choked tones. "I intend to bury the ashes in the graveyard and break the news to the parents as gently as I can. The mother has been out of the picture since last July, when I advised her to go on holiday in New Jersey. I'm going to urge the father to do the same very soon."

"I wish I could say this shocked me," Dumbledore said quietly.

"He paid the ultimate price for his unwillingness to go along with what Curwen wanted to do," Willett said resignedly. "And I'm not going to let his death be in vain. I'm going to the asylum as soon as I deem myself mentally ready."

* * *

_April 10, 1928_

Dr. Willett told Mr. Ward that he was taking a rest at his office. It was technically true, but what Ward did not know was that Willett was also conspiring with his British counterparts. Dumbledore and Slughorn had held a private conference after Dumbledore's brief Floo meeting the day before, and they had agreed that it was necessary to come to New England at last and catch up with Willett face to face.

Dumbledore could create international Portkeys without leave from his Ministry, and he did not hesitate in the least to do so, but Slughorn was hesitant to use an illegal Portkey. The Portkeys therefore had to be coordinated between the British Ministry of Magic and the American Department of Magic, which was actually headquartered in Washington rather than Arkham. Dumbledore was in thick with the British Ministry and quickly obtained official approval. Willett's DC connections were much more attenuated than his Arkham-Salem ones, but Benjamin F. Delapore, the Undersecretary of Magical Transportation, gave no trouble when informed that the Portkeys were needed for colleagues in research.

So it was that at the appointed time, Albus Dumbledore and Horace Slughorn swirled into Willett's office, each clutching a quaint artifact from their school. Willett sat in his chair, and two comfortable chairs had been set up for the guests.

"May I offer you a martini?" Willett asked, taking out bottles of gin and vermouth.

Horace Slughorn's eyes grew wide in shock. "I thought that in this country, spirits were—"

"Oh, they are," Willett said dismissively, "but wizards have never acknowledged that. A silly law, passed in a fit of misguided piety and concern for 'health,' that has caused more trouble than benefit. And really, the _potions _that we can make are often far more intoxicating." He mixed a drink for himself and stirred it.

"I believe I will have one, thank you," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. Willett promptly complied.

Slughorn appeared torn about flagrantly violating the law of the country he was visiting, but at the same time, Prohibition _was _a silly law, and he _did _want to try this American concoction, which he knew was associated with the high life...

"So will I, then, if you don't mind," he grunted.

The cocktails seemed to open everyone up. Willett looked much calmer to Dumbledore than he had appeared at that last Floo meeting. His face was set with a purposeful determination, and he began to narrate his experience in Curwen's crypt with intellectual detachment.

"The place was, as we suspected, a delving of the eighteenth century. There were quite a few rooms that clearly had not been used in modern times. However, we were correct that the modern-day experimentation had moved underground. I quickly found a modern room, and it seemed that this room was where all the books and notes I used to see in the Ward home were brought. It was in this room that I struck my first gold." Dr. Willett handed over a sheet of paper on which he had written down, from memory, the key pair of spells he had discovered. "This is the formula that my patient used to resurrect Curwen," he explained, pointing at the first.

The pair of British professors peered at it. Dumbledore's blue eyes grew wide and his face serious. Slughorn looked baffled. "What is 'Yog-Sothoth'?" he asked.

"It is the name given to a certain Old One—a powerful otherworld entity that controls the boundaries between worlds," Willett said. "In this case, the boundary between our world and the world of the dead."

Slughorn's face cleared. "Oh—like Death in the Tale of the Three Brothers, then!"

A shadow instantly passed over Dumbledore's face, but he said nothing. Willett smiled wryly. "Something like that, but not _quite_ as benign. Or perhaps 'Death' in that tale _was _the Old One, in which case the trickery of his 'gifts' makes perfect sense, but in that case, I'm afraid to say that the third brother could never have met him as an equal. Anyway, to continue—after I found these spells, I realized that they were a matching pair. The first one is used to raise a body from the prepared powder—which you," he said with a nod to Slughorn, "confirmed is used in making Inferi from the remains of those long dead. I have reason to believe that this spell also reincarnates the departed soul in that body."

Dumbledore and Slughorn both started at this, but it was Dumbledore who spoke. "That can't be so," he objected in a voice that seemed extremely agitated, surprising Willett with his vehemence. "Perhaps in the case of one such as Curwen—one who had split his soul and thereby kept part of it on earth even if an 'Old One' took the rest—but in the ordinary case, it just can't, Dr. Willett."

"With all due respect, Professor, I don't agree—and I will explain, in a bit, _why."_ He paused. "Throughout these initial searchings, I had been hearing a sound. It sounded like something alive was confined down there. I investigated further and, to my horror, discovered the source of these noises." He took a breath. "That accursed wizard had been raising up bodies from defective powders too, and when that is done, the Inferius that is created is _missing parts._ I think that he used these—creatures—in dark rituals, because there was a whole devil's chapel full of pits that contained these things, leaping and snarling about, even though they should not by rights have been alive, given how deformed and incomplete that they were."

Dumbledore was smiling knowingly. "My dear friend, all that this proves is that the defective Inferi were enchanted to do Curwen's bidding. It certainly does not indicate that any souls are yanked out of the world of the dead with that spell."

"My conclusion about the spell is not based on _that," _Willett snapped. He did not like being condescended to, especially since he had been in that crypt and Dumbledore had not. "I will tell you now, I was shocked when I saw one of these creatures, and I very nearly fell to a gruesome end into the pit that contained it. But I kept my head and scrambled out of the chamber containing these pits to continue my search. At last I came upon a room full of chemical and potion-making paraphernalia. I had seen a lot of it in the days when Charles conducted his work at home, but some of it was clearly antique. In this room was a copy of a certain dark potions book that I had investigated at the Miskatonic library, and a passage in the text that caught my attention had been underlined. It was, of course, the text we discussed at our last meeting."

"Borellus," Slughorn muttered. "Raising up Inferi from 'essential salts.'"

"Exactly. That very phrase had been recorded in the historical documents that Charles found, by a visitor to Curwen's house who accidentally caught sight of it... that was why it struck a chord with me in the library... but here it was again, direct evidence of what was going on rather than one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old hearsay. Also in that laboratory were stacks and stacks of coffins, sarcophagi, and urns of various ages. But in one antechamber, there was a set of shelves full of sealed jugs, each one labeled with a number." Here Dr. Willett paused and took a deep breath to gather his nerves. "Beyond that was another room. A pentagram was inscribed on the floor, and that accursed resurrection spell was written on one of the walls. There was a bowl of powder from one of the jugs set at one of the points on the pentagram. Gentlemen, I cannot describe to you the mental effect of this room... I have extracted my memory and placed it in a flask over _there"—_he pointed at the small Pensieve that was taken out of his closet—"so that you can confirm for yourself what happened. But I began muttering that spell under my breath, not even intending anything but to calm my mind with something rhythmical... and I give you my word as to what happened next. The powder rose up as smoke and _something came into being_ behind the smoke as I uttered the spell."

The British professors were silent, transfixed by the account. Then Slughorn spoke.

"How did you keep your head?" he croaked.

"I fainted," Willett admitted. "And the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the house, aboveground, with Mr. Ward hovering nearby. Neither one of us could get into the crypt. The manhole that had led down to it now only covered hard-packed dirt." He turned to Dumbledore with an even look. "No empty, mindless Inferius could do that."

Dumbledore looked deeply troubled. Willett felt a certain savage pleasure in having wiped the smugness right off his face.

"The—person—also left _this_ behind," he said, reaching into his notes and taking out a scrap of paper from the underground study. It was inscribed with early medieval lettering and written in a degraded form of Latin, but he was sure that both Dumbledore and Slughorn could read it. _"Curwen must be killed,"_ the key point of the note was translated.

Their mouths silently formed the syllables of the words written on that paper. Dumbledore withdrew his wand and cast a spell at the page. "Indeed this was written by—one from the distant past," he said in awe. "One from medieval England, in fact. I am astonished."

"I was astonished too. The spell can resurrect the dead! Curwen never needed a Horcrux in the first place, based on what this spell can do—unless, of course, the point of that painting were simply to influence Charles's mind and possess him, enabling him to perform extremely powerful dark magic that otherwise he likely would have been unable—or unwilling—to do." Willett paused. "And that's probably exactly what it was used for. That _bastard."_

"You are undoubtedly correct about the purpose of the painting. It is shocking to think of a Horcrux being used as a tool, especially a tool that its creator had to have known would be destroyed if his main soul were taken from the earth—but then, Curwen wouldn't have thought _that. _I am sure that when he invoked whatever it was he invoked at the last, he expected it to assist him rather than turn on him. Still, the Horcrux was absolutely meant to be a tool with the purpose that you describe. How far man can sink, how little he regards his soul, in the pursuit of power."

Slughorn was looking extremely upset and agitated. Dumbledore noticed. "Are you all right, Horace?" he asked.

Slughorn shrugged, trembling faintly. "This is vile, dark stuff," he muttered. "If you don't mind, Doctor, I think I could use another drink. I've drained mine and stupidly forgot to refill it before I did."

As Willett prepared another martini for Slughorn, Dumbledore took the opportunity to speak again. "The creation of a Horcrux as a weapon is a shocking thing... but I'm afraid, Doctor, that Curwen still did need a Horcrux for the, erm, _usual _reason as well. There is still no evidence that the spell you found can reincarnate the souls of the dead."

Willett looked up in protest from the drink he was mixing. "Are you implying that the person I raised must have also had one? I wouldn't _dare_ suggest that. Whoever it is, it could have destroyed me at once, but it chose otherwise. I would not risk incurring its wrath, Dumbledore. But how about this evidence? Those jugs were numbered, but there was a master list of names corresponding to the numbers. Some, _many,_ of the names I saw were of the great and good. That foul sorcerer was collecting the remains of the greatest minds of history in order to work out how to unleash the _Others _upon the earth."

"The person you inadvertently raised certainly was equipped with a mind. I agree that there would be no reason for the team of wizards to seek out _specific _people's remains if they were not interested in the minds and memories of those people. However, we do not know just what the, erm, _modus operandi_ of this Old One—Yog-Sothoth—is. It is quite possible that this invocation infuses the artificial body with a semblance of life, and the memories of earthly life that the soul holds, but not the actual soul that incarnated it in life."

"What about the sealed crypt, then?" Willett said in harsh tones, passing Slughorn his drink. "That required magic."

"Again, we do not know just what the capabilities of this being truly are."

Willett gave Dumbledore a hard look. "Albus, is this subject personal to you in some way?"

Dumbledore looked surprised at being addressed by his given name. "There is an artifact that is said to have the ability to recall the souls of the dead at the will of the person wielding it," he admitted.

"The Resurrection Stone."

"Yes," Dumbledore confirmed. "But the legend indicates that the only souls that will be called are those that have a powerful connection of love to the summoner. I confess, the idea that any dark wizard—any _wizard—_could simply summon _anyone _from _any _point in history is quite troubling to me, and I would prefer not to believe it unless it is proven beyond all dispute. I admit this freely."

Willett's irritation with Dumbledore softened. His reasoning did make sense. The nature of the spell that they were talking about _was _disturbing if it did what Willett believed it did, and he could understand why Dumbledore would choose to believe an alternate explanation.

"Very well," he said. "Let us continue, then, since neither of us can prove our belief in this matter. At a _minimum,_ though, the spell _does _infuse the Inferius with the mind and memories of the person, and if the person could perform magic in life, the Inferius has that ability too. Anyway, after Mr. Ward and I departed from that bungalow, we investigated that Latin note and determined what it said. I went to the asylum at once and confronted the patient with what I had found in the crypt."

Slughorn managed a nervous laugh at that. "How did he take it?"

"Like the defiant, arrogant son of a bitch that he is. He taunted me about the powder that had been laid out, asserting that if I had 'known the words to call it,' it would have destroyed me. What a shock _he _got." Willett smiled grimly. "I meant to perform Legilimency on him and determine what he had done with Charles, but that revelation caused him to pass out. I had to investigate that myself."

Slughorn and Dumbledore grew somber at this. "Albus told me about that," Slughorn said in a low tone. "How you found the body behind the paneling that used to have that portrait on it."

"Yes," Willett said. His eyes grew sad. "At least there is no doubt of his fate, terrible as it is. I intend to bury the ashes tomorrow."

"How are you going to tell the parents?"

"I think the father knows, deep in his mind, that his son was murdered and that I took care of the body, but he is not yet ready to acknowledge it. In time, he will do so... but the man has already had to accept so much that is a shock to him, and he needs time. Mrs. Ward is in New Jersey at my urging. I am going to advise her husband to join her as well and break it to her when he thinks she can handle it."

Slughorn looked alarmed. "New Jersey? Not, I hope, the Trinity Church area. There are rumors of a magical vault underground, accessible from the church, and a hoard kept there—"

"Yes, that's a Masonic legend," Willett said, "but no such vault has ever been uncovered. The thinking is that certain objects, keyed to open up the vault, are required to access it, but no one has found these objects."

"What sorts of objects—" Slughorn began to ask.

"Nobody knows, and there may be no basis in fact for any of it." That was not true—the American magical historians were convinced that the vault did exist, with Dr. Gates in Philly being particularly firm on the subject—but Dr. Willett did not want to say so. He was displeased that Slughorn even knew of it. But then, given the _types _of items alleged to be in the vault, and Slughorn's known love of valuable things, it was probably no wonder that he had heard of this legend. Still, it was an _American _matter. Part of the tale was that the hoard had been hidden during the Revolutionary War to remove it from the reach of British Loyalist wizards and force them to take out loans from the usurious goblins in London instead to finance the war. In the New World, wizards had not handed their bank over to the goblins; there weren't many goblins there, and the currency was backed by the full faith and credit of the Department of Magic. If the hoard came to light, there would probably be an international dispute about ownership rights. Dr. Willett had no inclination to discuss it further, and besides, they had another subject at hand.

"Let's stay on topic, Horace," Albus Dumbledore urged, his eyes glinting at Willett's face as if he understood a great deal more than he was letting on.

"Quite," the doctor said gruffly. "In any case, no, Mrs. Ward is nowhere around that site. She is resting in Atlantic City."

Slughorn nodded. "What are you going to do about Curwen, then? Do you need us to go with you to subdue him and—take care of him?" He shuddered. "How _do _you take care of something like that?" He gazed at the note written by the medieval wizard. "That says to dissolve the body in acid. I can think of several potions that would serve the purpose as well. Is that what we have to do?"

Willett shook his head. "I don't think so." He picked up the paper containing the resurrection rite. "Look at this again. It's a matched pair of spells, as I said before. The first one raises a body from the 'salts' that were created with the dark potions. The _second _spell puts it back down, I think—reduces it _back _to those salts. And it invokes the Old One Yog-Sothoth too, so whatever was animating the body—whether mind or soul—is also released whence it came. That's what I'm going to do. If my theory is correct, the simulacrum should disintegrate when I cast this spell."

Dumbledore gazed at the second spell. "I think you are right," he said. He gave Willett a long look. "The best of luck to you. In fact—Horace, do we have any Felix—"

Slughorn shook his head. "I'm afraid we don't, and it'll take too long to brew. I agree—this Curwen has to go, especially if he's about to talk his way out of the asylum." He shuddered.

"I know what I have to do," Willett said. "I appreciate the offer, but I consider myself capable of handling this."

Slughorn, meanwhile, was still shuddering. "I know we'll need to write this up, but after that's done, I hope I never _hear _the words 'Inferius' or 'Horcrux' again."

* * *

Three days later, on April 14, the following letter arrived in the Deputy Headmaster's office at Hogwarts:

"Esteemed colleagues and friends,

The matter is at an end. I have given Charles's ashes the most respectful disposal and interment I deemed possible, given the terrible circumstances. I have not alerted muggle authorities to the murder. In the first place, the boy _was _a wizard, if untaught by any save that accursed dark sorcerer. But more pertinently, the muggle authorities are convinced that the creature in the asylum is—_was—_Charles, and it is highly unlikely that they will be persuaded otherwise by any means short of completely exposing the wizarding world to them. I fear that this case will be used by some of my colleagues at the university as ammunition in a political dispute regarding what to do about inquisitive muggles and paranormally active squibs, but that is out of my hands. In Britain, I understand, there is no dispute about this—no organized faction that wishes to repeal the Statute of Secrecy. I have, I confess, been exasperated at times with the traditionalism of your country's magical community, but given how problematic the situation has become in the New England area, I wonder if there is not great wisdom in the British approach after all.

"But I digress. The case is finished. The simulacrum of Joseph Curwen is gone. The spell for 'laying down' worked perfectly, as I expected it to, reducing the body to the dust from which it was raised. It was promptly sucked up by a vacuum cleaner (a muggle electrical device that is used to clean) and will be deposited, along with the rest of the dust and dirt, in the earth. It cannot be gathered again. And with no Horcrux now, the soul is gone into Death, unable to possess anyone. I do not know who or what the entity was that I accidentally raised, but I think that it will be able to return whence it came when it has finished its work. (I understand that your Ministry has a portal to the other side of Death, if nothing else.)

"I have written a letter to Mr. Ward explaining that the matter is at an end. In my letter to him, I explained as subtly and kindly as I could what happened to his son, in the hope that he will accept it in his own time. I hope he will join his wife in New Jersey. As for myself, I have given notice to my university colleagues that I am going on sabbatical. I hesitate to propose this, for the subject matter is obviously highly dangerous, but I think the case needs to be written of in the journals—and I myself have a hankering for the famed British countryside. The fresh air and wholesome spaces might be just the environment in which we should write our report. I look for your thoughts on this matter.

"M. B. Willett"

* * *

_Spring 1943_

"In summary, between the dates of May 1926 and February 1928, a late-manifesting magical resident of Providence was engaged in a program of dark magic that resulted in the resurrection of the 17th-18th century dark wizard Joseph Curwen and the untimely death of the resident at the dark wizard's hands. Curwen had secured his deathlessness in the year 1765 by converting an otherwise Muggle painting of himself into a Horcrux. Curwen's necromantic arts and creation of a sort of conscious Inferi brought down the wrath of his town upon him in 1771. Upon his attempt to summon a dark entity of extreme power from the spirit plane in the ensuing fight, Curwen's corporeal portion of soul was apparently engulfed by the being. Little is known of such entities, but it would seem that the use of Horcruxes does not protect the corporeal soul from them any more than it protects from the far more common dementors.

"Between the years of 1919 and 1926, the late-manifesting resident, 'Mr. C. D. W.,' a direct descendant of Curwen, was drawn to study the life and work of his ancestor. C. D. W. uncovered the Horcrux painting, not knowing its sinister nature, and had it erected in his own home, where the soul fragment could gradually possess and dominate his mind. C. D. W. was influenced by the Horcrux into resurrecting Curwen. The seemingly lost fragment of soul was returned to the earth by the invocation of Yog-Sothoth, and it was housed in a body created from the ashes of Curwen's old body by a dark potion. The rite of invocation evidently caused the destruction of the Horcrux, an event that would not occur in the more historically typical scenario in which a dark wizard's primary soul fragment remains on earth after bodily death and is later rehoused by a dark ritual such as the Bone, Flesh, and Blood rite.

"The resurrected Curwen proceeded to terrorize Providence as he had done in the late eighteenth century, seeking out ancient remains and creating conscious, apparently intelligent Inferi of these corpses. The authors of this paper disagree on precisely what other kinds of magic may have been used in this dark activity. Lead author Willett believes that the dark wizard had access to a formula that allowed him to infuse these Inferi with the souls which formerly inhabited the living bodies, and that this was the same formula that C. D. W. used to retrieve Curwen's primary soul fragment from beyond the veil. Co-authors Dumbledore and Slughorn maintain that summoning departed souls is possible only when a portion of the soul is still grounded to the earthly plane, as was the case with Curwen, and that the Inferi were infused with some of the mind and personality that they possessed in life—akin to the creation of a standard magical portrait. That such a greater-than-usual degree of memory apparently existed in the Inferi is attributed by the co-authors to the invocation of Yog-Sothoth. It is perhaps fortunate that a definitive answer cannot be given, for Curwen was executed by lead author Willett on 13 April 1928 and the crypt in which he performed his researches is no longer magically accessible.

"This disturbing case highlights the gaps in current knowledge about the limits of such Dark Arts as the creation of Inferi and Horcruxes. Nonetheless, due to the extreme hazards imposed upon mind and body even of magically powerful trained investigators, the authors urge researchers interested in the subject to proceed with due caution."

Tom Riddle finished reading the scholarly article from the _Miskatonic Journal of Studies in the Dark Arts_ and set it down inside a notebook. He could hardly contain his glee. This was it; this was the key. He just needed the details of how to do it.

The case, he thought, proved what he had come to believe about blood: Those with lesser degrees of magical heritage were unworthy of magic and could not be trusted with it. This C. D. W. was close enough to a squib that the tracking implements in Arkham had missed him at birth and not powerful enough to control his magic. The mudblood fool had got what he deserved, Tom decided. He regarded the deceased necromancer with contempt as well and opined that Curwen had also got what he deserved. –Not for _moral _culpability, of course, but for sheer stupidity in creating Inferi with intelligence and free will, and for invoking some eldritch being he could not control that seized his primary piece of soul and necessitated the destruction of his only Horcrux to bring him back. _He _would not be so stupid, oh no. _He _would bide his time after securing immortality, gradually increasing his own power and learning how to control the more common dark creatures such as dementors, before issuing a challenge to those Others. The crypt was not magically accessible, they claimed? Tom wanted to chuckle to himself. _He _would find it someday, get into it, and work out how Curwen had gone wrong. It was one more magical thing that he would find and take possession of when he was ready... though probably not for many years, since he had quite a list now.

The paper did not give explicit details about any of the dark magic it discussed—presumably, Tom supposed disdainfully, to prevent giving instructions to readers—but two of the authors were teaching at his school, and one of them trusted him implicitly. It would be a delicate thing, talking to Slughorn. The subject was probably distasteful to the man after his involvement in this research. Tom knew he could not reveal _what _he had been reading; this journal was officially not allowed inside Hogwarts and it was well that Caractacus Burke's procurement of it for him not be known. He also could not give away just how much that he already knew from reading this paper. But if old Sluggy could be manipulated into telling him _just _a little bit more—like whether a wizard could have only one Horcrux—or revealing just where in the library Tom might go to find the spell... well, _that _could be very useful indeed. There was to be a Slug Club meeting this very evening, Tom remembered. After a nice dinner, when the professor had plenty of wine in him, might be the ideal time...


End file.
